Prior art methods of inserting terminal pins in a printed circuit board include insertion of pre-bent wires and simultaneously bending all wires in one step after insertion.
Autosplice of San Diego, Calif. produces an automatic pin insertion head which bends the pin prior to insertion, rather than bending the pin after insertion.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,807,357 and 4,889,277 to Zahn and assigned to Autosplice disclose methods for inserting a pre-bent pin in one step and for bending a pin by rotating a terminal holder, respectively.
Murphy, U.S. Pat. No. 2,262,901 shows an array of pins which are bent after insertion using a tool which bends all the pins simultaneously. Crowman et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,557,044 and Aoki et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,165,165 disclose the bending of pins after insertion of the circuit element into the board.
A need exists for a quick, simple system for inserting and bending terminal pins in two separate operations, which incorporates a secondary ram to finish bending pins when pins are skipped or there is an interruption in the continuity of the primary ram operation.